Numerous activities on shore kept people busy during Sturgeon Spectacular while thousands were out on the ice trying to spear a sturgeon fish.
Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

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Mason Krueger registers his 146-pound, 73-inch sturgeon in Oshkosh. He harvested the fish on opening day, one of 847 taken this season overall.(Photo11: Joe Sienkiewicz/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo

OSHKOSH – Giant and ancient, the lake sturgeon is a coveted catch on the Winnebago lake system.

The rush of spearing a giant sturgeon, a feat that requires sheer luck as much as it does some muscle, is the feeling that keeps spearers coming back to the ice. It’s a passion that’s personal, cultural and unparalleled outside the Winnebago region.

Some would say the moments following the big catch — standing in line at a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources registration station — are arguably less enthralling. Yet, these are the moments that keep the fish around. Biologists use the harvest as a rare chance to monitor the health of the sturgeon population and get a glimpse into the life of the hulking bottom-feeder.

It’s a task done with rigor and aggression, and everyone knows to follow the DNR’s rules.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a fish or wildlife resource that’s managed as closely as the sturgeon population,” said Ryan Koenigs, the DNR’s Winnebago system sturgeon biologist.

The fish is a cherished resource for people across the nation — the Lake Winnebago system has the highest concentration of lake sturgeon in the world. Minnesota has a water system that might be close in comparison, Koenigs said, but the cultural excitement for the fish in Wisconsin is unique, he said.

Sturgeon experts say it’s that cultural passion and appreciation for the fish that keeps the population strong — estimated near 35,000 — in a way unlike anywhere else in the world.

“The sturgeon kind of goes along with the overall history of natural resources management in Wisconsin,” said Kathleen Schmitt Kline, the education outreach specialist at the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute and co-author of “People of Sturgeon: Wisconsin’s Love Affair with an Ancient Fish.”

Fish, sturgeon included, were one of the first resources the early state conservation system attempted to manage, Kline said, and in the 1930s, the people living in the area decided they wanted a say in the management effort.

“It’s interesting how there was always this really passionate group of people living around Lake Winnebago who really wanted sturgeon,” Kline said. “They were very vocal and went down to Madison and got that season opened in 1932, but then later on, they worked with the conservation commission to figure out what rules worked best to protect this resource.”

It was one of the first examples of dedicated citizen involvement and collaboration in the state’s history of managing a natural resource, she said.

And the fish needed all the help they could get. Prior to 1903, there was little regulation on who could harvest the fish, Koenigs said. Expanded development lead to water pollution, dammed rivers and over-harvesting as consumer demand for caviar grew at the same time sturgeon populations in Europe crashed. The state decided to make harvesting sturgeon illegal in 1915 to save the population, and it stayed that way until 1932.

One of the things that makes sturgeon so spectacular also makes them vulnerable to over-fishing: the fish's life cycle. They simply can’t replace themselves quickly enough to replace those that are harvested.The fish’s life span exceeds the length of humans’, with female sturgeon living beyond a century. They’re also late-maturing, Koenigs said. Sturgeon don’t spawn until about 14 to 20 years old for males and 20 to 30 years old for females, and only do so every two years for males and four years for females.

That delicate balance puts a lot on the shoulders of humankind, which, due to the sheer size of the fish, are the only natural predators of the adult sturgeon.

The relationship between sturgeon and people living around the Lake Winnebago system goes back to the original natives of the land. There’s a reason people still spear the massive fish despite the advances of modern technology — it’s the way it has always been done. Kline said the Menominee were one such group, hunting sturgeon prior to colonization.

The Menominee tribe relied on sturgeon as their main source of protein. They negotiated for Keshena Falls as a location for a reservation because it was the location the giants stopped as they migrated up river in the spring to spawn, a migration that continued for thousands of years before a dam cut off the tribe’s access to the fish. The last sturgeon harvested on the reservation was in the 1950s, Kline said.

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A sheep head pokes out from the mouth of a sturgeon after it was registered and loaded back onto the truck during opening day of sturgeon spearing at Jerry's Bar in Oshkosh February 10, 2018. Jeannette Merten/for USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN, Oshkosh Northwestern

Rhett and Ken Gardner of Fond du Lac watch Greg Moerner of Milwaukee make an ice sculpture Saturday February 10, 2018, in front of the Thelma Center for the Arts in downtown Fond du Lac. The sculptures were part of Sturgeon Spectacular which is a winter festival in Fond du Lac that coincides with the opening of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Angie, Tim and Maddie Bovee of Fond du Lac look over a snow sculpture Saturday February 10, 2018, in front of the Thelma Center for the Arts in downtown Fond du Lac. The sculptures were part of Sturgeon Spectacular which is a winter festival in Fond du Lac that coincides with the opening of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Jim Irvin of Green Bay and Chris Stangler of Sobieski watch for sturgeon Saturday February 10, 2018, in their shanty on Lake Winnebago during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Camdyn Sadowski of Rosendale looks over a 57 inch, 38 pound sturgeon Saturday February 10, 2018, at Wendt’s on the Lake. The fish was caught by John Peterson (background) of Pittsville during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

A long line of sturgeon spearers come off Lake Winnebago Saturday February 10, 2018, at the Wendt’s on the Lake DNR weigh station during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

A crowd of onlookers gather Saturday February 10, 2018, at the Wendt’s on the Lake DNR weighing station during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Vickie Pucker of Eldorado (right) watches as Wisconsin DNR representitives Jeff Schindelholz and Jonathan Pyatskowit check over her sturgeon Saturday February 10, 2018 at the DNR weighing station at Wendt’s on the Lake. Vickie speared the fish during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Jeff Warner of North Fond du Lac (right) watches as Wisconsin DNR representitive Jeff Schindelholz weighs his sturgeon Saturday February 10, 2018 at the DNR weighing station at Wendt’s on the Lake. Jeff speared the sturgeon while it was eating another fish during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. The fish was still half way in the sturgeon’s mouth during the registration process. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

This sturgeon was speared by Jeff Warner of North Fond du Lac, Saturday February 10, 2018, while it was eating another fish during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Jeff Warner of North Fond du Lac (far right) watches as Wisconsin DNR representitive Jeff Schindelholz checks over his sturgeon Saturday February 10, 2018 at the DNR weighing station at Wendt’s on the Lake. Jeff speared the sturgeon while it was eating another fish during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Jeff Warner of North Fond du Lac (far right) watches as Wisconsin DNR representitive Jeff Schindelholz checks over his sturgeon Saturday February 10, 2018 at the DNR weighing station at Wendt’s on the Lake. Jeff speared the sturgeon while it was eating another fish during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Stephanie and Brad Jensen of Fond du Lac wait in line Saturday February 10, 2018 at the DNR weighing station at Wendt’s on the Lake, to register a sturgeon that Stephanie speared during the first day of sturgeon spearing season. Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

For twenty-five years David Buskirk fished for sturgeon and he finally speared his first one unloading it at Jerry's Bar in Oshkosh Saturday, February 10, 2018. Jeannette Merten/for USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN, Oshkosh Northwestern

David Buskirk stands along side the sturgeon he speared Saturday morning hanging on the scale at Jerry's Bar in Oshkosh Saturday, February 10, 2018. Jeannette Merten/for USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN, Oshkosh Northwestern

In the '90s, the tribe negotiated with the DNR to harvest sturgeon in the spring, and the state is also working with the tribe to stock the river north of the dam with fish to restore access, Kline said.

People were able to rely heavily on sturgeon for protein thanks to the bottom-feeder's reliability over the centuries. The prehistoric giants are the oldest residents of the Winnebago system, Koenigs said, estimated to date back to 150 million years ago. Through the eons, the fish has demonstrated astounding resilience, including the settlement and expansion of human society.

“They’ve been able to withstand a lot of events that have caused other species to no longer be around,” Koenigs said.

Part of that credit can go the environment itself, said Robert Stelzer, an aquatic ecologist at the UW-Oshkosh. The fish have access to all the types of aquatic habitats they need at each life stage, such as the rivers wherein they spawn.

Food is plentiful as well. The region’s abundance of lake flies makes their larva a main component of the sturgeon’s diet. They also eat gizzard shad, as the invasive fish die off en masse in the winter.

“They have flexible diets and are able to adapt,” Stelzer said.

Shad-eating is the prime example of this adaptability — shad established themselves in the Winnebago system relatively recently in the sturgeon’s evolutionary history, he said.

There isn’t much insight into what else the fish survived on as the ecosystem changed around them, but Stelzer worked with some of his students to collect samples and get an idea for the first time, of what a sturgeon’s diet is like over a fish’s lifetime, confirming the fish’s historically heavy reliance on lake fly larva.

Sturgeon have shown adaptability over eons, and human intervention has supported a population that is the envy of other regions. Still, as is often true with conservation efforts, the work is continuous and evolving.

“They’ve been resilient to changes that come through time, but that doesn’t mean that they can withstand any stress in the future, particularly new stresses that maybe we don’t know about,” Stelzer said.

But the experts agreed that the people’s love for the sturgeon is a major reason the population continues to thrive. It all comes back to those registration lines, where researchers can collect samples and ascertain the health of the population’s health.

Over the last decade, the population has steadily increased, Koenigs said. It’s a fish management success story made possible by a willing, participatory public, the experts said.

“I think its a testament to the connection they have to the fish,” Klein said. “It’s the people who were living around Lake Winnebago that decided they wanted to reopen a spear season but then they also agreed to work with the DNR to accept the regulations that were based on science.”

“It’s only because our state made the commitment to managing this resource over 100 years ago that we have what we have today.”